Principles

PCR? It has been so long and the acronym „PCR“ is so common that it might take us a few seconds to remember that it stands for “Polymerase Chain Reaction”. Who doesn’t know that PCR is a technique for amplifying a region of DNA so that one starts with a small amount of DNA and end up with virtually an unlimited (well, theoretically that is) amount?The basic principle of PCR is quite simple, but the amazing thing is that this technique had withstood the test of time and flourished to give rise to many variations. Aren’t you curious about this amazing scientific innovation developed so many decades ago? Who invented PCR? How did the first thermal cycler look like? How did scientists of old perform PCR before an actual thermal cycler was invented?